Dark/Fire (UP) - Elder Farming Deck (2019)
I'm fairly new at the game, but I've run this deck about 200-400 times on Elder and gotten a 10-15 to 1 win/loss rate and a fair amount of EM's, reliably beating any of the various AI decks. I started off with Darkness, and then added in a few fire removal spells to cover up some of the deck's big weaknesses. This deck will obviously NOT work as well unupgraded (in fact, it's probably pretty bad unupgraded). I recommend running a good Mono-Darkness deck until you have the funds to upgrade most of the deck. You maybe can use the funds for decks for FG's or PVP's at that point instead (newbie here), but I've had a lot of fun with this one. (31 Cards) Mark (Fire) X1 Obsidian Towers X9 Pests X4 Black Dragon X1 Obsidian Dragon X1 Vampire X3 Improved Steal X3 Siphon Life X3 Improved Dusk X1 Eclipse X1 Firestorm X2 Rage Elixir X2 Vampire Dagger X1 I. General Strategy Use Pests to speed Quanta generation and slow down AI, Vampires/Vampire Dagger to chip AI down to about 30-50 HP while keeping your HP high or full, and Dragons/Siphon Lifes to burst down the remaining AI HP. Use steals to take away annoying and valuable AI permanents (or to steal pillars if they only start off with 1 or 2). Obviously, use Siphon Lifes, Rage Elixirs, Firestorms for creature removal. Eclipse and Improved Dusk are also fairly self-explanatory. II. Composition Mark of Fire I've found that the advantage of being able consistently to throw out Rage Elixirs and Firestorms early without adding a decent number of Fire Pillars to the deck (hurting consistency) or relying on a Fire AI opponent outweighs the extra speed you might gain for your Darkness cards. With the number of Fire cards in the deck, I've rarely found that I have a bunch of Fire quanta sitting around that I won't be able to use. Considered adding Fahrenheit to make use of any extra quanta, but don't think the extra damage is worth the consistency loss. Obsidian Towers X9 Playing with any more led me to get pillar flooded more often than I preferred, and playing with any less led to me being pillar starved. Upgrading pillars is painful but fairly necessary for this deck in my opinion. Your starting hand will have only one to two Towers, so having the extra +1 quanta really helps you avoid discarding cards due to hitting the max hand size limit. It also helps compensate for the speed loss from using a Fire Mark. Pests X4 Important for the extra quanta generation (extra speed). These buggers can also occasionally completely quanta-starve your opponent out of the game. However, I've found that Elder AI consistently has three to five pillars/pendulums in its opening hand (and at least 1-3 in following draws) - thus, it's not worth sacrificing consistency for the bit of extra slow vs the AI by using more than 4 Pests in this Deck in my opinion. Upgrading these is somewhat painful, but again important. 4 HP will allow them to survive most of the removal the AI can throw at you (thereby letting you keep generating quanta) - Drain Life, Ice/Fire Bolt, Firestorm - forcing the AI to waste Shockwaves, Lightning Bolts, Rage Potions, etc. on them. In a vacuum, the extra HP will also prevent Otugyh from being able to devour them, even with the Momentum boost. Black Dragon X1 Your beat stick/finisher. I left this unupgraded because I often find myself at 10 or 11 quanta and I value the bit of extra speed I can get over waiting for an extra turn for slightly better stats. With Eclipse active, will helpfully survive Lightning Bolts and Rage Potions. My experience is that this creature and the Obsidian Dragon provide more than enough consistent damage for this deck. Obsidian Dragon X1 Same as the Black Dragon. Not great stats for the increased cost in my opinion, but the extra 1 HP is fairly useful to allow it to survive removal without Eclipse. You can probably hold off on upgrading this until you upgrade other stuff (I upgraded this first as a newbie), the deck might even work better with just 2 Black Dragons. Vampire X3 Consistent damage-dealer at a decent cost that is crucial for regularly getting EM's, or for just keeping you alive long enough to burst down the AI. Fairly vulnerable to removal at 3 HP, but very powerful and moderately survivable with Eclipse active. I open with and or draw them at a fairly good rate with 3 in the deck. Upgrading them is important, but you can make do with the unupgraded version. Improved Steal X3 Probably one of the biggest strengths of Darkness decks in general. It lets you take advantage of most of the powerful permanents in other elements while also denying them to your opponent. Depending on the board, can also occasionally be used to steal pillars and shut the AI out of the game. I open with and or draw them at a fairly good rate with 3 in the deck. Upgrading for the cost reduction of 1 is nice, but not imperative. Siphon Life X3 Another big strength of Darkness decks. I believe it drains for 16 Life at max quanta (75). Acts as good removal at any stage of the game, and is very helpful in getting EM wins. I open with and or draw them at a fairly good rate with 3 in the deck. Here again, upgrading for the cost reduction of 2 is nice, but not imperative. Improved Dusk X1 Self-explanatory. Very helpful in keeping you alive long enough to secure the win, particularly against AI that uses lots of creatures (makes EM's easier too). I personally haven't come across enough permanent removal or steals vs Elder decks to justify more than one, but am thinking about adding in an extra one to increase my draws of it. Usually, however, I haven't found that this shield is necessary to secure the win or even an EM. Here too, upgrading for the cost reduction of 2 is nice, but not imperative. Eclipse X1 Also Self-Explanatory. Decent damage boost to creatures, but I like it more for the extra 1 HP. The downside is it also boosts opposing Darkness/Death creatures (though this means the AI won't steal it and you can benefit from opposing Nightfalls), but generally still worth it. I don't draw it as often as I would prefer, but when I ran two copies I frequently ended up opening with both copies or drawing them both in quick succession. Because it doesn't stack with copies or Nightfall and a lot of decks don't have permanent removal or, I'm sticking with just one copy for now. Upgrade at your discretion, the +1 HP is what is important in my opinion. Firestorm X2 Covers a Mono-Darkness deck's lack of multi-target removal. Absolutely necessary to consistently beat Elder swarm decks. In my opinion, any more than 2 copies is overkill (and probably deadweight) and any less than 1 will result in not having it when you need it more often than not. With only a Fire Mark for Fire quanta, upgrading for the cost reduction of 2 is very important (although even at 5 it will still feel a bit high). Rage Elixir X2 Acts as powerful early removal, particularly when you want to use your Darkness quanta to set up the board. Siphon Life is very nice, but you need to have at least 20 quanta to deal the same amount of damage (you don't get the healing, but using Siphon Life just to heal 6 usually isn't what you're playing it for anyway). Also provides great versatility by letting you combine it with Siphon Life or save your Siphons for later. The reasoning behind using 2 copies is the same as Firestorm (I've found that having 4 Fire cards gets the best, consistent use out of your Fire quanta). Also can make your Vampires absolutely god-like if they are targeted by Basilisk Blood. Upgrading to get the extra -1 is fairly important; I think you'll be surprised at how often that extra bit of damage is relevant. Vampire Dagger X1 Basically, an Eclipsed Vampire that can't be targeted by creature removal/stall at a cost of 2. Hard to come by in my experience and limited to 1 on the board, but nonetheless very powerful. If I had another copy, I'd 100% run 2 copies with an extra Tower - it's that good in my opinion. As previously mentioned, I don't think you run into that much permanent removal in Elder, but I'd definitely like to draw it more. That said, using only 1 copy does benefit the deck's consistency. Definitely worth the upgrade, but still pretty good unupgraded.